4 shot in brewery's shadow
Residents shocked as gunmen hit 3 children and a man in a possible dispute over a jacket
By Gus G. Sentementes and Eric Siegel
Sun reporters
Originally published April 13, 2007

A 10-year-old boy and two teenage girls were wounded yesterday in a brazen lunchtime shooting in East Baltimore. Police were investigating the attack as possibly having been aimed at a 20-year- old man amid a dispute over a jacket.

Two men jumped out of a green sport utility vehicle and shot the man playing dice with others on the sidewalk about 12:30 p.m. Bullets also hit the boy and two 15-year- old girls as they stood on a sidewalk in the 1700 block of N. Bradford St., near the old American Brewery building.

The children's wounds were not considered life-threatening, police said. The victims' names were not immediately released.

Two law enforcement officials familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in its early stages, said they are exploring whether the shooting might have been prompted by a dispute over a jacket.

Police believe the wounded man is the cousin of a witness to a double murder in the same block in October 2005 but were hesitant to immediately connect yesterday's shooting to that case. The man charged in the double murder is scheduled for trial today in Baltimore Circuit Court.

The four victims in yesterday's shooting were taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where the man was listed in serious condition, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. He is expected to survive.

Residents were upset by the bold nature of the shooting and that three of the victims were young, innocent bystanders. The area around the vacant brewery was the subject of "A Neighborhood Abandoned," a two-part series last year in The Sun.

"Stuff like this happens all the time," said Leslie Funderburk of the 1600 block of N. Bradford. "The thing about this case today is that it was done in broad daylight.

"This is very sad," said Funderburk, who has two small children and was at work when the shooting occurred. "It's going to happen again."

Marcia Cooper, who lives on Federal Street with her two preteen daughters and two teenage foster children, said: "That's not the first child that got shot around here. It's dangerous, it's dangerous."

The city has seen a sharp rise in shootings during the past year - a trend that police attribute to many factors, from turf wars between drug dealers and gangs, to personal vendettas being settled with illegal guns that are easy to buy.

Through March 31, nonfatal shootings had spiked 32 percent over the same period last year, with the number of victims up from 122 to 161, police statistics show. As of yesterday afternoon, 75 people had died in Baltimore homicides - the same number as this time last year.

Statistics released Wednesday showed that nonfatal shootings had increased 79 percent in the Eastern District compared with last year.

In the long-troubled Eastern District, where yesterday's shooting occurred, the Police Department recently bolstered its efforts with an infusion of 50 more officers scheduled to work in two shifts, from noon to 2 a.m.

The block in which yesterday's shooting occurred has a history of violence, though the neighborhood is home to many young children who play in the streets.

On Oct. 18, 2005, Stanley Dorsey, 31, and William "Loose Kanon" Kirkpatrick, 16, were gunned down in the early evening. Allen Little, a 28-year-old with a history of drug and gun convictions, was arrested in their deaths and charged in December 2005.

Since his indictment in January 2006, electronic court records show that his murder case has been postponed four times - the kind of delay that remains common in city murder cases. Little's trial was scheduled to begin today.

Hours after yesterday's shooting, police officers in marked and unmarked vehicles could be seen patrolling the district, pulling cars over for traffic infractions and interviewing people on the street.

(WJZ) BALTIMORE The violence must stop--that's the message being echoed in City Hall after Mayor Sheila Dixon reacts to news of another day of bloodshed in Baltimore.

As Kathryn Brown reports, at least six people were shot in Baltimore City Thursday, adding to a number of shootings that is higher this year than it was at this time in 2006.

Police called the growing number of shootings a stubborn crime which, they can't seem to get a hold of.

So far 75 people have been murdered in Baltimore City this year. That is exactly equal to the number of people murdered at this time last year but, the number of shootings is up significantly from 148 last year to 181 as of Thursday.

"I see a lot of our violence and murder is certainly a part of the drug culture," said community activist Oscar Cobbs.

Cobbs chalked up much of the violence to the number of illegal guns polluting Baltimore's streets. He said the shootings will not go down until the illegal guns are targeted more aggressively.

A city program, Project Exile, is designed to do just that, putting stricter penalties on offenders caught with illegal weapons. Plus, a new plan to create "safe zones" in some of Baltimore's toughest neighborhoods are just a few of the things city officials hope will curb the disturbing trend.

A frustrated Mayor Dixon said the city is pushing hard with these new techniques to continue trying to quell the violence.

Dixon said the community was "so depressed where this happened today, there's a whole host of factors involved in that and we just can't continue to expose particularly our young people to that type of environment."

In Thursday's first reported shooting four people were injured including three children, just after 12:30 p.m. in the 1700 block of N. Bradford Street.

A 10-year-old boy was one of the victims in the shooting. He was shot in the leg.

Police said the other victims were two 15-year-old girls and a 20-year-old man.

Family members of the victims said the 10-year-old and the 20-year-old are related.

The three juveniles are all expected to be okay, but the 20-year-old man is listed in serious condition after being taken to Hopkins.

A short time after the N. Bradford street shooting, two people were shot on Lombard street.

"It's ashame," said an outraged neighbor. "Teenage kids out here today can't even sit on [their] own steps without having gunshots killing our kids."

Police said they are looking for a green SUV seen fleeing the scene of the quadruple shooting. The SUV was described as a Lincoln Navigator.

Suspect arrested in East Baltimore shootings
Police are looking for 2nd suspect in wounding of man, 3 children this week
By Greg Garland
Sun Reporter
Originally published April 14, 2007, 4:01 PM EDT

Police today arrested a man with a lengthy criminal record as a suspect in this week's shooting of three children and a man on the streets of a blighted neighborhood of East Baltimore.

Johnnie Henry Toomer III, whose last known address was on the 2700 block of East Monument St., was arrested around 6:30 a.m. inside a house in the 500 block of North Collington Ave., said Officer Troy Harris, a police department spokesman.

"He was arrested without incident and taken to Central Booking," Harris said. Police gave Toomer's age as 21 but some court records listed him as being 22.

Harris said police are continuing to investigate and are searching for another possible suspect. He said Toomer has a lengthy arrest record and was on probation when the shooting occurred.

Court records indicate that Toomer, who went by the nickname "Smurf," was on probation after pleading guilty to drug possession and distribution charges in February 2006.

He received a suspended sentence and was placed on probation for four years, records show.

Toomer was arrested again in June 2006 on drug charges and for resisting arrest and assault but was found not guilty last January.

Toomer also was arrested in 1999 for attempted murder, robbery and weapons possession. He was charged as an adult but was waived to the juvenile system in 2000, records show.

Thursday's lunchtime shooting in the 1700 block of North Bradford St., near the old American Brewery, happened in a blighted neighborhood that has been the scene of street violence in recent years.

Police said a green sport utility drove down the street and stopped near a group hanging out in front of an occupied dwelling and three vacant rowhouses with plywood-covered windows.

Two men jumped out of the vehicle and started shooting, police said, wounding two 15-year-old girls, a 10-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man who was the target. Police say the shooting may have stemmed from a dispute over a jacket.

Harris said that police have been "working day and night on this case" since the shooting.

Referring to Toomer's arrest, he said, "This has been a priority of the department and we're pleased to have this result."